A Study on Developing the Kadazandusun Commercial and Industrial Community (KCIC) in Sabah, Malaysia

Abstract

The creation of a Bumiputera Commercial and Industrial
Community was formulated to achieve the second strategy of the New
Economic Policy, which was removing the identification of race with
major economic function. Through this concept an exploratory
research on the creation of a Kadazandusun Commercial and
Industrial Community was made to enable the Kadazandusun
community to be at par with other communities by the year 2020.
The first two objectives of this study determined the current
level of involvement of the Kadazandusun in commercial and
industrial activities and identifying current entrepreneurship
development programmes. From the secondary data, the
Kadazandusun controls less than 17 percent of the 9 economic
sectors used as a basis for comparison for current economic performance and were not aware of entrepreneurship development
programmes.
In accessing the strengths, wealmesses, opportunities and
threats facing the community a questionnaire survey was cond ucted .
Data processing included both qualitative and quantit.ative method.
Five groups representing the cultural community
characteristics namely awareness, information: psychological> culture
and manpower development were identified through factor analysis
and acted as independent variables towards community's information
awareness, knowledge regarding available loans, administration and
management, networking, market share, manpower development and
financial management in the regression analysis.
Using situational analysis, Strategic factors Analysis Summary
Matrix revealed strategic factors for the development of
Kadazandusun community. Strategic strength factors were
"Bumiputera Status", "Largest Bumiputera Group" and "Government
Development Programmes", while the major weaknesses were
"Motivation", "Access to Business Information", and "Management
Skills". Whereas opportunities were represented by "Kota Kinabalu
Industrial Park", "Access to Loans" and "Government Policies". The
threat factors were "Competition from Other Communities", and
"poatics".An "lnformation Center" was recommended to be set-up by the
Kadazandusun Chamber of Commerce and lndustry to help
entrepreneurs in terms of management skills, financial management,
information management, quality development, strategic networking,
business development, technology development and fulfilling human
resources needs. Institutions dealing in business consultancy,
entrepreneurship development programme, information technology,
training and funding were also recommended in the proposed model.
These key factors will- produced genuine entrepreneurs of
quality and resilient to challenges, competitive in all potential area of
economic growth, able to cultivate entrepreneurship culture, and
capable of developing and nurturing the Kadazandusun community's
capabilities in businesses and pursue the nation's industrialisation's
goals as envisaged in Vision 2020.